


stay

by orphan_account



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Legacies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 19:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Honestly, it seems to Hope that she was born to fuck up everything.





	stay

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not dead but handon is (thanks to the amazing julie plec)  
honestly this season feels like pure shit for now so i thought i'd get some inspiration and write something again which is like wow bc i thought i'm totally done with this but here we are i guess
> 
> just like always, all the feedback is appreciated :) (if legacies fandom is even alive sksksk)

Hope is sick.

She rides in the car in the passenger seat, looking into the gray September sky, and a burden of responsibility presses on her chest and stomach. Hope is sick and her left side is very sore.

Hope knows nothing about the anatomy of humans, and is not even sure which side of her is kidneys and which is liver. She would like to say that her soul hurts, but her chest is empty, and her soul is hardly hidden at the bottom of her left side. Hope hisses through her teeth as the driver brakes sharply because the belt cuts into the skin. Hope feels sick every second.

Honestly, it seems to Hope that she was born to fuck up everything. Maybe this is the purpose of her life. To take up something and fail miserably, so that other people pass by and, nodding in her direction, say to their children: “Do not look at her, otherwise you'll end up the same way.“ In this case, Hope will sit under the bridge, in a box from the refrigerator, and try to warm her grembling fingers with holey gloves. People will throw a trifle to her, and Hope will lower it on bread, which will feed the pigeons. Because Hope is, you know, romantic.

Mikaelson would have thrown herself off the bridge on the twenty-eighth day of her homeless existence. Not because she is a weakling, but because twenty-eight is an important number. But the bridge would not be high enough, so Hope would just freeze and die due to a cold that grew into pneumonia or something worse. She would not even be able to die romantically: born. to. fuck. up. everything.

The taxi driver has to hail Hope several times because the lousy passenger did not even notice how smoothly (this time) the car braked. Hope pays him crumpled bills and a few dirty coins (nobody wants to know in whose hands they had been before.) The driver smiles exhaustively at her words of gratitude and drives off as soon as she slams the door.

The older generation doesn't like picking up girls with a pale look and wrinkled bills in their hands.

Hope is still sick when she looks at the narrow river from the city promenade and holds a plastic cup of hot tea in the hands. Inside, there is one packet of sugar, because her mother taught that when you are sick, it is better to drink sweet tea.

Hope thinks she's constantly sick.

She looks at the gray river and wants to be hugged. Hope wants someone to slide their icy fingers under her blue windbreaker, under a black T-shirt, so that these fingers gently (you know, gently) run along her ribs and back, so that someone's lips gently kissed the skin near her ear.  
Hope wants to cuddle and sleep, sleep and cuddle.

Mikaelson, in fact, is an ordinary student, and exams, along with the cold autumn, draw out her desire to live, like dementors in Harry Potter.

She is not from the group of brilliant children who responsibly study hard and write all of their examination papers. She is not one of those who prefer to go out with her friends after classes and enjoy every minute. Although, she used to be. In her old school.

Mikaelson, in fact, has her own small apartment, which is just as cold as outside, because in September no one turns on the heating. Because, oh well, guys, this is September, we are not obliged to turn on the heating for you in the autumn, even if you walk wearing coats and jackets.

Because even utilities fuck her up.

Hope thinks that standing on the embankment and whining about the present is the destiny of the weak. Hope is one of those. One of those who see how their life turns into a gray expectation of autumn (-winter-spring-summer-autumn), and consciously do nothing with it.

Hope’s mother always told her that she was a strong and good person. Hope's mother always told her that she was a person, and the girl didn't believe mother's single word.

Tea cools down a bit, and Hope takes a few sips, seizing sweet water with sweet chocolate. She jokes with herself about the sweet life, about “Dolce Vita”, which, in fact, is not a description, but a fucking cocktail mixed with by some familiar bartender.

Mikaelson thinks that she is doing fine: no mental disorders, no diagnoses, no serious problems. She's just fucking tired of herself and fucking everyone around, with almost no reason, almost no meaning.

Hope is looking at the bridge.

Hope is sick.

"Don't jump."

Someone slows down at Mikaelson's side and speaks these words very slowly and quietly. Hope turns and the guy steps back, obviously afraid of an inadequate reaction. Hope thinks that her reaction can be called inadequate, because she simply turns back, continuing to glance at the bridge (under which she plans to spend the next twenty-eight days).

“Hey,” the young guy reaches with her thin fingers to Hope's shoulder (and she thinks how icy they are). "Don't jump, you hear me?"

Hope turns again; there is a gray-gray void in her eyes, and a half-empty glass of tea in her hand. She takes a breath before speaking.

"I do not…"

A stranger with huge greenish eyes hastily shakes her head.

“It doesn't matter, just don't jump, okay?”

Hope is silent and drills him with an emotional look. The young man takes something out of the pocket of his parka, tangled in his own fingers. In his hands lies a blue player. Not an iPod, not an iPhone, but something from a past life. Without a drive, of course. The past, but not the super past.

"Wanna listen?"

Hope does not answer, and the stranger carefully puts earphones on for her. His fingers hurt Hope's skin. Icy.

The guy turns something quiet and, judging by the high voice and not the highest quality recording, his own. Hope says nothing and shuts the eyes, while the stranger takes a glass from her hands and intertwines his icy fingers with her hot (burning-burning-destroying) ones. He pulls Hope forward, and Mikaelson obediently goes because she doesn't care anymore.

Hope thinks this only happens in movies. Exactly in the movies, they say something like: “if you really want to, then everything will work out.” Those are book, film, staged laws that do not work in real life.

The young man squeezes her hand more tightly, and Hope stops thinking about her own stuff, listening to the voice in the earphones. The stranger leads her somewhere far away from the embankment, into narrow alleys where the wind does not lick the cheeks.

After the next song, Hope swallows hard and pulls out one earphone.

“Who are you?” She asks quietly, and her voice bounces with a rubber ball from the old walls with cracked paint.

“Landon, he does not turn, stubbornly continuing his journey. And you?”

“Hope.”

“That's nice, Hope.” Listen to music.

Hope almost laughs because it's all ridiculous and unrealistic.

“Are you a volunteer or something? I am not homeless.”

Landon stops and turns to him, and Hope is ready to swear that the human in her is much less than non-human.

“No, just Landon. Not a volunteer. Not homeless.”

“Okay,” Hope scratches the back of her head with the free hand. “Where are you taking me?”

“Away.”

“Okay.”

Landon leads her so confidently, as if he knows exactly where he is going. Hope doesn’t believe that much, because Landon’s fingers are still icy, because he constantly bites his lips, because the voice on the record sounds broken. Because Landon yells at the tapes and Hope squeezes his fingers a little harder.

Hope stops in one of the listed lanes. Landon looks questioningly and gently strokes his knuckles with his thumb.

“Felt it?” He asks.

“Felt it,” Hope answers.

Landon's lips are red and almost bleeding. It pains Mikaelson to watch, but she still does.

“Let's go further?”

“No,” Hope shakes her head. “I'm tired and my left side hurts.”

Landon shrugs and sits down on the stairs of someone's porch, dragging the girl along with him.

Hope can't stop looking at her palm in Landon’s fingers, but she’s not going to try to break free. Hope likes Landon’s fingers cold, but maybe part of her wants to warm them.

“Who are you, Hope?”

The girl looks up at the sky and smiles as Landon's words break her heart on the tape. She pulls out her earphones and puts the wires on the lap. Hope shrugs.

“What's the difference? She smirks. “Would you like to ask me something?”

“Do you want to play “truth or dare”?”

“Truth or dare?”

Hope smiles.

“Truth, wise guy.”

Landon bites his lower lip again, and then finally looks Hope in the eyes.

“What were you thinking about while standing on that embankment?”

“I will become homeless and live under the bridge for twenty-eight days before jumping into the river, but I still will not die,” Hope says slowly. “Because I was born to fuck up everything, and even dying for the first time won’t work out for me. Truth or action?”

“Truth.”

“Your last name?”

“Kirby. Hope, that was a very dumb question, you could just look in the player.”

“Sorry, wise guy, I'm not the best student.”

“Me, too. Truth or action?”

"Truth.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm sick. My side is very sore, and I also always want to sleep.”

“Just sleep?”

“Sleep and cuddle.”

Landon smiles again, thinking that this gray city setting is not suitable for Hope. Kirby wants to take her somewhere far away and entrust with all of his secrets. Maybe Hope is a killer but no one needs Landon. Maybe Hope wants to get some information from him but Landon doesn't know anything significant.

Maybe Hope is just Hope, and Landon can tell her anything.

“What else do you want?”

"That's a good question. Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

Hope thinks. She never knew how to come up with something interesting for this game, but this time the idea comes to mind by itself. Mikaelson twists the player in her hand and says:

“Sing to me, Landon.”

Landon’s cheeks blush, and they both blame it on the cold September, because it’s just easier.

Landon sings her a lullaby because Hope wants to sleep.

“Okay, truth or dare, Hope?”

“Truth.”

“What else do you want?”

“Home.”

Landon stands up and squeezes her palm.

“Let's go home, Hope.”

And Hope obeys.

Hope has no idea where to go, so she immediately tells Landon the address, and he nods. They continue to play: Landon sings songs to Hope several times, Hope tells Landon about her as much as he has not told anyone else before (has she?). They keep holding hands.

They keep holding on.

Hope yawns through every step taken, and the gray sky changes color to blue-violet.

“Truth or dare, Landon?”

They walk up to the porch, and Kirby smiles.

“Dare.”

“Stay with me.”

(Today).

Landon is silent.

This doesn't look like a game anymore.

Hope is sick in the morning. She opens her eyes and finds no one around.

Hope is sick, her side hurts, and the gray sky falls on the city again.

She goes back to the bridge and sees the blue player with a note on the ground.

“I know your address. You know my last name. Do not panic. I'll be back (consider that this is my “dare”), and I'm not your hallucination; here's the player. Please don't jump.“ 

Hope smiles.

She will not jump, even if it is not her “dare”.

*

Landon never comes back. And it seems like he'd forgotten Hope for more than just one time now.


End file.
